Mating Rituals

[Mondat]

[Last update: 2014-08-16]

 

MATING/COURTSHIP RITUALS

In the animal world there are different mating and courtship behaviours. Dancing around the mate, showing off colours, mating calls or songs, teasing and chasing, bringing food, biting and others.

On DC we have many dragons with different types of looks, food sources, characters and hunting behaviours which we can read about in their descriptions and hopefully in the Dragon Encyclopedia which will be coming anytime "soon".

But when we breed our dragons the only messages we get are:

• The dragons don't show much interest in each other
• The dragons didn't produce an egg
• The dragons refuse to go near each other
• The dragons breed to produce an egg

So, why not make the breeding process itself a bit more interesting and add (breed-specific?) mating rituals?

Examples:

• Cavern Lurker calls Mint, but Mint seems to be too afraid to come closer. Try again next week.
• Soulpeace dances around White and White joins. The dragons breed an egg.
• Purple Dorsal shows off its fin and although Spring is interested, the dragons don't produce an egg.
• Black brings (female) Silver meat, but Silver refuses it and snarls at Black.

I know that this suggestion doesn't really have any "use", but I personally think it would add something to the game and breeding lineages, especially rp-wise.

I also suspect it would take lots of work, be it coding or getting permission from the spriter's/creators if it's going to be breed-specific behaviours etc. - but this is something for TJ and his staff to decide. I just wanted to throw this idea out

 

PLEASE NOTE: my suggestion has nothing to do with removing refusals. It is just a suggestion for a replacement of the lines we have at the moment and for dragons to express their courting/mating behaviour.

 

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UPDATES:

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Variants regarding the breeding results:

a.) Keep the egg results we currently have and add the new mating ritual in front of them.

Example: Black brings Silver meat, but Silver ignores Black. The dragons didn't produce an egg.

b.) Keep the egg results we currently have and just add the new mating ritual.

Example: The two dragons breed to produce an egg. Black brings Silver meat and Silver is impressed.

c.) Replace what we currently have completely.

Example: Black brings Silver meat, but Silver refuses it and snarls at Black. Better keep these two away from each other.

d.) Replace the lines but put the exact meaning - no egg, no interest or refusal - in brackets behind/below the new text.

Example: Black brings Silver meat, but Silver refuses it and snarls at Black. (REFUSAL)

 

How this could be implemented:

• Lurhstaap wrote a detailed post
• Olympe:

  I'd say that all breeds should get their very own mating ritual description for

   

  Male courtship (when you use the breed action on the male)

  Female courtship (when you use the breed action on the female)

  Male courtship acceptance (when you chose this male as a mate from the breeding list)

  Female courtship acceptance (when you chose this female as a mate from the breeding list

   

  Also, we'd need a refusal message ("Female Dragon and Male Dragon hiss and growl at each other. It seems like a good idea to keep these two apart from each other.") and two different "no interest" messages - one for dragons with very different mating rituals ("Chosen Mate is confused by Bred Dragon's display of affection and turns away.") and another one - maybe even the current "no interest" phrase - that can pop up in any case of pairing.

   

  Then, I'd suggest creating different groups of breeding rituals - like "sky dance", "offering kill", "fighting display" or some other kind of display that our dragons are supposed to do. If we then breed dragons with the same kind of courtship ritual, we shouldn't be able to get the "confusion" message for "no interest".

For people who want numbers:

Whitebaron:

We have currently 4 results per breeding.

 

1) we can alter it so that we have 4 results per breed, so whenever a gold dragon is used for breeding, it displays one of the golds messages.

 

makes x*4 messages needed.

 

2) we can alter it so that we have 4 results per gender per breed.

 

makes x*8 messages needed.

 

3) we can alter it so that we have one result for every combination (bad idea, anyway)

makes x*(x-1)/2 * 4(8) messages needed.

This one is pretty unrealistic, not only in terms of numbers, but also its not like (d/m) ating typically works - people have their set pickup lines and behaviours, animals too - they don't vary THAT much with differing mates.

 

 

PROS

[+] Extra fun for people who are interested in the mating behaviours of our pixel dragons

[+] It would add something to breeding which is a major game element in DC, next to egg hunting

[+] Details from the descriptions the creators have to come up with for "Dragon Requests" could be put to use, especially if they won't appear in the Encyclopedia

 

CONS

[-] As this doesn't seem to be useful, the time for implementing this should be put to better use.

Counter-arguments:

=> Not all suggestions have to be based on the NEED factor. One could bring this argument up for every suggestion on this forum.

=> Just because there are people who might not like or read it doesn't mean it is a waste of time. Everyone has their own preferences, there are people that would like it very much. Best example: Dragon Encyclopedia - people openly wrote they would not care about such a thing but it gets worked on still.

 

[-] I do not read these messages anyway.

Counter-argument:

No one will come to harm with continuing to ignore what's written after clicking the "Breed" button.

 

[-] People might want to create their own scenario of their dragon's mating ritual in their head.

Counter-argument:

People with headcanons already have to ignore actual DC canon because it exists. Otherwise creators would not have to come up with descriptions about food sources, hunting or mating behaviour etc. for "Dragon Requests". We would not have the breed descriptions we have if we should create our own scenarios from scratch.

Possible solution:

Make it optional, with a toggle on / off.

 

[-] People might not want to think or don't want to be made to think about the mating act while playing a harmless adoptable game (also regarding younger players or children from players who play as well).

Counter-argument:

We already have breed descriptions where mating behaviours are addressed. Reproducing is a natural act. The goal of this suggestion is the implemention of mating rituals in a tasteful & playful way to make it more interesting, not in a "dirty" way.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Mondat

[Cendaquenta]

I like this idea, though I could see it possibly being a little difficult to implement what with the hundreds of dragon breeds, and the fact that some of them don't have their rituals mentioned, or whatnot.

Nevertheless this is something I've wondered about, especially in regards to how a mixed-breed pairing would go about these rituals, and I'd love to see some of the great details from the descriptions put to use. Completely support.

[edwardelricfreak]

omigosh I would LOVE this! It adds just a little more detail that would be nice to see.

 

The only downside is that it would take a while to compile all of the different messages. Unless we make ALL of the different descriptions here, I doubt TJ would really think twice about it before closing the thread.

 

If I think of any I'll post again, but eh I'm too tired to think of anything good right now.

[moonsapphire19]

I really like this idea and agree with Cendaguenta. It would also take time and effort on part of the spriters/creators to either come up with or describe in detail the mating rituals for their dragons. I could also see getting mod/spriter/creator permission to do a sort of "Mating Ritual Description" thread so that people could submit their ideas based on the dragons' descriptions and have the spriters/creators pick which user-submitted mating ritual they like best!

 

Another side note for the mating ritual description is to leave it solely on the male or female (depending on the breed) to have the text come up before a breeding is attempted:

" {Gold Dragon Male} lifts his head, roars thunderously and tempts {Silver Dragon Female} closer with his masculine call."

Which would then display the success of the breeding attempt. (i.e. the two produced an egg, etc.)

We would have to really be careful to not be too explicit with the descriptions if the user-submitted descriptions were allowed, as always .

Edited June 3, 2014 by moonsapphire19

[InugamiZERO]

would not the creator of the dragon be needed for this and not the spriter

(yes I know some spriters came up with their dragons)

[Obscure_Trash]

The only potential issue I see is: I really don't want requests becoming flooded with this extra information that TJ would then also have to input/add when releasing dragons. Releases should be fun, even for TJ. As long as he doesn't mind, I don't mind. I would say to limit it to 1 - 3 per dragon. No need to go hog wild and add a custom message for every single possible pairing. ;~;

 

(I think it's also fine to leave up to the imagination, though and that's my preference for this, but I won't argue against this just based on that as I do not hold strong feelings for this.)

[Lurhstaap]

The generic lines could easily be left in place for those breeds where no data or permission for more specific lines exist.

 

And btw I'd be totally willing to do the grunt work of tracking down permissions where needed and writing the lines. I could do it for all the breeds in an hour or less if permissions weren't an issue. I think little touches like this are part of what make good games great. As far as requests go it'd only add a few lines to the official dc text bit. They'd be too short for people to go too crazy with it.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Lurhstaap

[Obscure_Trash]

I don't think permissions are an issue unless someone pops by and is against this being added to their dragon. A lot of breeds already have their mating rituals in their breed rituals and if you wanna do ones that don't, well, descriptions usually give a good overview of personality that it'd be easy to get creative.

[Lurhstaap]

I honestly didn't think so, but I wasn't certain. I worked at a similar site for two years as head admin so I am thinking of the implementation side too... it'd just be a few extra lines of text to invent or copy from the request, at least as I'm picturing it, and I can't imagine this sort of thing being terribly hard to code, but lôrd knows, I was wrong about that sometimes back then.

 

edit

 

Some more thoughts... it could work like this. Each breed could have the following added...

 

A line for producing an egg with a member of its own species

A line for eggmaking with ä different species

A line for breeding but no egg with own species

A line for breeding no egg with other species

A line for no interest, could probably be the same as now and generic

Refusals could remain species generic or be customized

And the code would be set to use the current generic lines if the species specific ones for the relevant breed were left blank.

 

It wouldn't have to be written more specifically - that is, say, red x black and so on. You coúld just have bits in the text that automatically fill in with the names and/or breeds of the dragons being bred.

 

EDIT II:

 

Here's a few examples I came up with based on some species with clearly described breeding behavior in their descriptions, or whose species character was so clear and plain as to give me inspiration what I felt would be a relatively uncontroversial interpretation of their breeding behavior. I don't want to impose too much of my own vision or interpretation of the DC world on this - I just want to see this happen enough that I'm willing to shoulder as much of the work to make it happen as I can.

 

This scheme would require coding, as well as the basic form and script to display species-specific text if available instead of the existing generic texts for breeding, a way to have the names of the dragons inserted in the text on the basis of maledragon, femaledragon, speciesx, and speciesy. A simple (DragonNameA) and (DragonNameB) could work in a pinch though, I think, with some rephrasing here and there.

 

-Pink-

Same Species, Successful: (Maledragon) and (Femaledragon) ceremonially exchange kills before going off together alone. Later, (Femaledragon) lays an egg!

Same Species, Unsuccessful: (Maledragon) and (Femaledragon) ceremonially exchange kills before going off together alone. Unfortunately, (Femaledragon) does not become pregnant.

Other Species, Successful: (Name of pink dragon) presents (name of other dragon) with a kill. (Otherspecies) seems puzzled, but intrigued. Soon, the two go off together alone. Later, (Femaledragon) lays an egg!

Other Species, Unsuccessful: (Pinkdragon) presents (Otherspecies) with a kill. (Otherspecies) seems puzzled, but intrigued, and goes off with (Pinkdragon) after a while anyway. Unfortunately, no pregnancy results.

Same Species Disinterest: (Femaledragon) and (Maledragon) seem to get along well enough, but they do not exchange kills or go off alone this time.

Other Species Disinterest: (Pinkdragon) presents (otherdragon) with a fresh kill, but (otherdragon) seems puzzled and does not react 'correctly', so (Pinkdragon) backs off and does not proceed with the courtship.

Optional Species Specific Rejections: (Same Species) (Maledragon) and (Femaledragon) growl jealously over their kills when you try to encourage them to trade. So much for that. (Other Species) (Pinkdragon) snarls at (otherdragon) and hovers protectively over (his/her) kill. These dragons see each other as threats, not as potential mates. You'll just have to keep these two away from each other.

 

-Stone-

Same Species, Successful: (Femaledragon) and (Maledragon) stare into each others' eyes, motionless, for hours. You eventually get bored of watching and leave them alone together. A while later, you find a new egg lying beside (Femaledragon).

Same Species, Unsuccessful: (Femaledragon) and (Maledragon) stare into each others' eyes, motionless, for hours. You eventually get bored of watching and leave them alone together. A while later, you check on (Femaledragon), but alas, no egg.

Other Species, Successful: (Stonedragon) stares at (Otherdragon), trying to make eye contact. Picking up on (Stonedragon)'s interest, (Otherdragon) responds positively. In time, an egg is laid.

Other Species. Unsuccessful: (Stonedragon) stares at (Otherdragon), trying to make eye contact. Although (Otherdragon) picks up on (Stonedragon)'s interest and responds positively, no egg is produced.

Same Species Disinterest: Although you go out of your way to get (Maledragon) and (Femaledragon) within eyeshot of each other, they never make eye contact. Darn. Maybe next time...

Other Species Disinterest: Although (Stonedragon) stares longingly at (Otherdragon) for hours, (Otherdragon) fails to notice or respond.

Optional Species Specifc Rejections: (Same Species) (Maledragon) and (Femaledragon) deliberately shut their eyes, refusing to acknowledge each other at all. That's a bad sign if you've ever seen one.

(Other Species) (Stonedragon) stares longingly at (Otherdragon). Unfortunately, (Otherdragon) misinterprets (Stonedragon)'s intent and bristles defensively! You have to step in to prevent a nasty fight. These two should be kept apart from now on.

 

-Golden Wyvern-

Same Species, Successful: After ritually bowing to each other, showing off the golden gleam of their scales, the two wyverns retreat to the female's lair. When you go to check on (Female's Name) later, you find her guarding a new egg.

Same Species, Unsuccessful: After a lengthy ritual of wing-spreading and bowing, the two Golden Wyverns retreat to the female's lair. Unfortunately, no egg is produced.

Other Species, Successful: (GoldenWyvern'sName) approaches (OtherDragon'sName) with wings outstretched before bowing low. (OtherDragon), though of another species, gets the idea, and soon enough, an egg is laid.

Other Species, Unsuccessful: Although (GoldenWyvern)'s elegant courtship of (OtherDragon) was successful, no egg was produced.

Same Species Disinterest: Although you try to get the two wyverns interested in each other, no courtship behavior occurs. Maybe you should try again later.

Other Species Disinterest: At your urging, (GoldenWyvern'sName) performs an elegant courtship bow for (OtherDragon'sName). But (OtherDragon'sName) does not respond properly and (GoldenWyvern'sName) becomes discouraged. Maybe you should try again later.

Optional Species Specific Rejections: (Same Species) You isolate (MaleWyvern) and (FemaleWyvern) in the hopes that they will breed, but instead, they avoid each other coldly. You quickly recognize that these two dislike each other profoundly and give up any hope of pairing them. (Other Species) (GoldenWyvern'sName) balks at performing the courtship bow for (OtherDragon'sName), anxiously wing-fluttering instead. You quickly recognize that these two dragons are not going to be a pair and separate them.

 

 

 

 

It is a fair amount of text if you do this for all the extant species, but, as I said, I'm quite happy to type it up if TJ wants me to so all he has to do is code in the form, then paste in the text. Which would be tedious, probably something to be implemented over time rather than all at once, but IMO it'd be worth it if he wants to enrich the world, which, given all the work going into the Encyclopedia and suchlike, it seems to me like he does. Of course that doesn't mean this sort of thing fits into his vision, but it's worth suggesting.

 

An example of how this might work out in practice... say I tried to cross one of my pinks to one of my golden wyverns. It should probably use the species text of the species the person used the breed action from. That is, if you're breeding, say, pink x stone, and you used the breed action from the pink dragon's page, then you'd see the pink-specific breeding lines. Alternatively they could be chosen at random, so that one time you'd see the pink-specific lines and other times you'd see the stone-specific lines. I prefer the former solution though as in my mind the 'initiating' dragon is the one whose species-specific stuff makes the most sense to be used. Otherwise you WOULD have to go through and write a specific one for each possible pairing, which is definitely out of the question.

 

Anyway, if I did thaat, using the Breed action from the pink's page, it'd work out looking like this. Say the breeding was successful, it'd say:

 

Silver Gumtree presents Sedimentarius with a kill. Sedimentarius seems puzzled, but intrigued. Soon, the two go off together alone. Later, Silver Gumtree lays an egg!

 

It's not that much more complex than what we currently have but it would add a LOT to the 'feeliness' of the world, make it seem deeper and more 'real', while still leaving plenty open for people to imagine on their own.

 

 

Edited June 3, 2014 by Lurhstaap

[Mondat]

The only potential issue I see is: I really don't want requests becoming flooded with this extra information that TJ would then also have to input/add when releasing dragons. Releases should be fun, even for TJ. As long as he doesn't mind, I don't mind. I would say to limit it to 1 - 3 per dragon. No need to go hog wild and add a custom message for every single possible pairing. ;~;

 

(I think it's also fine to leave up to the imagination, though and that's my preference for this, but I won't argue against this just based on that as I do not hold strong feelings for this.)

I understand your concern but I thought that people can/have to come up with mating behaviour for Dragon Requests anyway, so there might not be a "sudden flood with extra information".

We're talking about few sentences. Whether you write the egg description "This eggs looks very very ugly" or the lines for mating behaviour "Ugly dragon builds an ugly mud nest to attract (...)", there is not much difference in my opinion - the creator should have an idea how their dragon should be like anyway.

The real issue is the additional work behind the scenes for TJ I agree...and TJ's opinion on this matter.

 

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@Lurhstaap:

Oh wow, thanks for your effort!

An example of how this might work out in practice... say I tried to cross one of my pinks to one of my golden wyverns. It should probably use the species text of the species the person used the breed action from. That is, if you're breeding, say, pink x stone, and you used the breed action from the pink dragon's page, then you'd see the pink-specific breeding lines. Alternatively they could be chosen at random, so that one time you'd see the pink-specific lines and other times you'd see the stone-specific lines. I prefer the former solution though as in my mind the 'initiating' dragon is the one whose species-specific stuff makes the most sense to be used. Otherwise you WOULD have to go through and write a specific one for each possible pairing, which is definitely out of the question.

Using the species text of the dragon we clicked 'breed' makes more sense, I'd agree. It's like we encourage our shy dragons to say 'I love you' and go for it. Aww.

 

Implementing mating behaviour would probably take ages but then again, there is no need to hurry and it would be worth it in my opinon, for a better breeding experience - which is a huge part in this game.

[Sir Barton]

I admit that I don't have an understanding of coding, but this would seem like an awful lot of work for a minimum benefit. How many people actually read the breed line, anyway apart from keying in on the word "refuse?"

 

I'm not actually against the idea, but I think TJ's time and energy could be put to better use, ie. releases, events, implementation of new BSAs, etc., instead of tweaking lines of text for the actions of over a hundred different species. *shrugs* Just my thoughts, for what they're worth.

[Fuzzbucket]

Breeding experience ?

 

I don't READ what it says (well, I make a note of a refusal) - I just look at the egg, or not, and carry on. My "experience" would be in no way improved by reading that my dragons had ceremonially exchanged kills while mating - it REALLY wouldn't.

[TheGrox]

I suppose if spriters/creators wanted to give their dragons a bit more personality, this would be interesting. But it's not very necessary. I too never look at the text after breeding.

 

And I'd rather TJ focus on adding some more useful additions to the site first, considering how long it takes for anything on DC to be changed currently...

[purplehaze]

I suppose if spriters/creators wanted to give their dragons a bit more personality, this would be interesting. But it's not very necessary. I too never look at the text after breeding.

 

And I'd rather TJ focus on adding some more useful additions to the site first, considering how long it takes for anything on DC to be changed currently...

Agreed. I would give this a very low priority for TJ's time. It would be sort of cute, I guess, if anyone bothered to read it, but there are many changes that would be much more important to improving the game for everyone.

[Lurhstaap]

Obviously it's not a high priority, but so what? Should suggestions be limited only to things of importance? And I fully realize that a lot of people just skim flavor text like this, but a lot of us would enjoy it. We don't 'need' the encyclopedia or the existing species flavor text, but I think most players would miss those things if they were gone even if in practice they don't read them much.

[TCA]

This would actually be super adorable and I want it.

[HeatherMarie]

Not *against* this, but holy carp what a lot of extra work/words!! I breed to attempt getting an egg, I for one wouldn't care or even read all these new extra things. And going by Lurhstaap's post, it seems like this would include a LOT of changes. I'm not about to pretend I know how much work it would really be, but I see a lot of other suggestions I'd rather see work on.

[olympe]

I like this idea, though I could see it possibly being a little difficult to implement what with the hundreds of dragon breeds, and the fact that some of them don't have their rituals mentioned, or whatnot.

Nevertheless this is something I've wondered about, especially in regards to how a mixed-breed pairing would go about these rituals, and I'd love to see some of the great details from the descriptions put to use. Completely support.

I'd love if the suggestion got implemented.

 

Sure, not all breeds have their respective mating behavior mentioned - but we could always ask the conceptor, make up some seemingly logical stuff or add some "general" mating behavior for the breeds that don't have anything special mentioned.

 

Regarding "making up stuff": Even if we couldn't contact the conceptor and/or artists, it stands to reason that BBW show off their red chests as a mating ritual, while it would make absolutely no sense for a deep sea dragon to do an aerial dance in order to impress their prospective mates.

[Mondat]

Not *against* this, but holy carp what a lot of extra work/words!! I breed to attempt getting an egg, I for one wouldn't care or even read all these new extra things. And going by Lurhstaap's post, it seems like this would include a LOT of changes. I'm not about to pretend I know how much work it would really be, but I see a lot of other suggestions I'd rather see work on.

I do not always read the lines we have at the moment myself because there are only a few and they're the same. But if this got implemented I would and I would be curious to see what new relase dragons do.

 

Every person has their own preference. There are people who do not care about the Dragon Encyclopedia which takes lots of extra work from TJ's side I suppose, but I am looking forward to it. There are many suggestions which I do not care about but people think they are important.

 

Anyway, breeding is a major element in this game for the people who breed lineages. Therefore I think it is worth to think about changes to make it a bit more exciting. I was also thinking about items your two dragons could bring to your scroll when they mate, or maybe have a picture of the nest they built.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Mondat

[annageckos]

I think this could be nice. It may not be needed, but I think it adds a little something to the game. The only thing is the wording Lurhstaap used in some of the text. Pregnant was used, "Unfortunately, no pregnancy results". Pregnant isn't a word that is normally used in egg laying animals. If they are carrying eggs it is said to be 'gravid'. Though I think we can leave out anything about being pregnant/gravid and just say no egg is produced or something like that. Since when you breed the dragons you know right away if you are getting an egg or not.

[irercha]

Breeding experience ?

 

I don't READ what it says (well, I make a note of a refusal) - I just look at the egg, or not, and carry on. My "experience" would be in no way improved by reading that my dragons had ceremonially exchanged kills while mating - it REALLY wouldn't.

This.

I have nothing against it providing that the message (refusal/no interest/etc) will be clear and I won't have to wonder if they really don't like each other or just a little bit... but personally I simply feel no need for this.

[OtomeKristinOtaku]

I really like this idea. It gives DC a more realistic touch and it enriches the whole breeding experience. Only 8 different lines per dragon is not a lot, and for the newer releases, the creators can work on them, while for the older releases, users could work on them, select 2 or 3 final options, and let the creator decide.

 

Let's see what TJ thinks of the idea

[HorseChick]

I like the idea but it would be lots of lines,and would take a lot of time.

But I still like the idea!

[LibbyLishly]

If there are players who are willing to put the time and effort into creating every single individual message, I think this could be awesome - just one additional little set of details that would make DC just that much more real. The upcoming Encyclopedia will probably help in giving more info that can inform the breeding messages.

[Cinnamin Draconna]

Total waste of time in my opinion. Doesn't add anything to actual game play. Doesn't do anything for or against breeding success. Just seems like a lot of extra work for somthing that's purely cosmetic. I'd much rather TJ put his time into something useful, like better scroll sorting.. new BSA's.. new dragons.. the encyclopedia.. etc. etc. etc.